We Begin
by teh liz
Summary: Mark gets a very special Chanukah gift – the truth.


**Notes:** For Grandpa Dan.  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own it. The end. Also, if you do not like vicious neckties, this fic is not for you.

Ten-year-old Mark Cohen pulled at the tie around his throat. No clip-ons for him, no sir. Not while his father was still breathing. This was a genuine tie like his father wore, tied securely by Mr. Cohen.

"I'm choking," Mark protested.

"It's only a tie, Mark, not a snake," his father told him firmly in a voice that suggested Mark probably shouldn't argue further.

As soon as his father turned to answer his mother's cry for help with the motzah ball soup, Mark began tugging at it again. His sister, nine-year-old Cindy, pranced by in her blue velvet dress, and Mark resisted the temptation to seize the menorah and whack her over the head with it. He'd rather be wearing her dress than the thing around his neck.

The doorbell rang, and Cindy's cat, Fluffy (Mark wondered if the animal had ever contemplated suicide, he certainly would if he'd been named such a thing), went mad, running about for a place to hide as if her life depended on it. Mark wondered if he should follow.

"KIDS, YOUR GRANDFATHER IS HERE," Mark's mother called with remarkable volume. She rushed past the door of the living room, more excited than Mark could remember seeing her. Not that he so much blamed her, he was a little excited himself. He saw plenty of his father's parents, who lived a few blocks away and were spending Chanukah in Arizona with his uncle and aunt. Rarely did they see his mother's father, even though he didn't live all that far away, in New Jersey. Mark arrived in the hall in time to see a taxi pulling away from the curb, and his grandfather enveloping his mother in a hug.

Cindy started to rush past Mark, but he caught the sash of her dress and gave her a Look. _Let them have a moment!_

"Sarah, my dear, it's wonderful to see you," their grandfather said, in his accented English. "Why do you never call, eh? Too busy for your old father?"

The kids giggled at the abashed look on their mother's face. Nice to see that she came by it honestly! "I'm really busy with the kids, dad, and the women's group at the Temple, you know how that is."

He nodded in understanding. He was only joking with her because he could, of course. "Speaking of the children…"

Cindy took her cue like a pro. "Grandpa!" she cried and rushed forward. He laughed and caught her in a hug.

Mark continued to hang back, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and looked up in panic. It was only his father, apparently whatever crisis that had bee with the soup was no more. He strode forward and shook his father-in-law's hand warmly, and then the only one left was Mark – nervous and shy as always, sticking out like a sore thumb in a room of extroverts. "Hi," he said awkwardly, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger.

"Mark, aren't you going to hug your grandfather?" his mother asked. "I'm sure you've grown at least another foot since you saw him last."

"Nope, still just the two from what I can see," his grandfather winked at him, and Mark grinned. The ice broken, he came forward and gave him a hug.

"Excellent, _wunderbar_ to see you all," he said energetically. "Are there children who want their Chanukah presents?"

Cindy bounced on the balls of her feet and said, "Me!" Mark even found himself grinning and nodding.

"Dad, can't it wait until after we eat?" Mark's mother asked, a bit authoritatively, like she was trying to maintain control in her own household, but knew the situation was hopeless – which she was, and it was.

"No," he said and ushered the two children into the living room with a shopping bag he'd brought with them before their mother could protest again.

"Cindy, you can sit there, yes, and you, Mark, beside her – yes, lovely," he said, and once they were seated and looking up at him expectantly, he looked back, stroking his snow white moustache. "You first," he pointed at his granddaughter, and she brightened. Mark sat tight – mere minutes and it would be his turn.

Cindy opened the present she'd been handed, to reveal a large white box. She opened the box, pushed aside the tissue paper on top, and her expression changed. It softened from excitement to astonishment, her mouth formed in an 'O' at the perfection that lay before her. She lifted the doll out of its box reverently, not saying a word. This was a doll with a cloth body and a painted china face, unlike the ones piled in her room, all cheap plastic and synthetic hair. "Grandpa…" she breathed in awe.

"Her name is Margharetta, and she came a long way to be with you, my dear. You will give her a good home, _ja?_"

"Yes!" Cindy nodded fervently, and then turned her attention back to the doll – even Mark had to admit, it was nothing short of a work of art.

"And now, Mark," Grandpa said, withdrawing the last package from the bag and setting it on Mark's lap.

Mark felt that it was fairly weighty in his lap. Not as large as Cindy's, but still decently sized. The suspense killing him, he tore off the paper (although he tried not to appear too eager, he _was_ mature, after all) and was also shown a box. Picking the tape off the box with his fingernails, he opened it, pushed aside newspaper and… "…What is it?" Mark asked perfectly honest in his confusion, but feeling slightly bad about it.

"I'm glad you asked!" his grandfather said, lifting it out of the box. "This is a film camera, very old." He paused, and then held it out to Mark to take. "It was my brother, Jan's. You know what happened before he came here to America."

Mark nodded silently, holding the motion picture camera in his small, ten-year-old hands. He knew that his grandfather had come to the United States in the mid-1930's, leaving behind his family, including quite a few brothers and sisters. His youngest brother, Jan, was the only one to survive the holocaust, and had come to the United States once he had been located by Mark's grandfather. He'd died when Mark's mother was a little girl, never completely well after Dachau, and now Mark was holding his camera. He looked back up at his grandfather over the top of his glasses, the old man fuzzy for Mark's near-sightedness, but clearly giving him a serious look.

"There is truth out there, Mark. Someone just needs to see it and show it to others," he said, tone just as serious as he looked.

Mark took it seriously. "Thank you, grandpa," he said quietly, with as much awe as Cindy had regarded her doll.

His grandfather put a firm but loving hand on his shoulder, and then said. "Is that motzah ball soup I smell? I could eat the-"

"_Dad,_" Mark's mother said warningly, clearly seeing where that statement was going.

"… Let's eat!" he said summarily, standing up from where he'd sat on the coffee table, across from the children.

Mark continued to look at the camera, listening to the conversations like he was underwater and they were still on land. It was a nice piece of machinery, he thought, but then again he was ten. He hardly knew a good piece of machinery from a bad one. He wouldn't realize it then or for several years, but with that camera, he had been given the responsibility of showing people the truth, captured on moving film, whether they were ready to see it or not.


End file.
